Anglo-American relations during the Civil War

The American Civil War only features slightly, if at all, in the British collective memory, but the war years 1861–1865 saw special strains placed on relationship between the two nations. In Britain the conflict became one of the most debated topics of the day, leading to a proliferation of pamphlets, newspaper reports and letter-writing campaigns, as well as pro-Confederate balls, anti-slavery petitions and cotton boycotts.

Economic ties

Even after the War of Independence and the War of 1812, there remained many commercial, social and cultural ties between Britain and the United State. The two nations were also often competitors, suspicious of one another, particularly with regard to the British northern provinces and in relation to Central and Southern America. British investment in the United States was considerable, and the cotton mills of northern Britain and Ireland relied on the Southern states for their raw materials. Industrial developments, notably the railways, were also often financed through British banks and companies. As part of the British Empire, the British North American provinces and the Caribbean formed important markets and sources of raw material.

Such considerations informed the course of the war. The Confederate states believed that British and other European reliance on their slave-plantation produced cotton would ensure early recognition for their independence, a factor that led to the announcement of the secession from the Union. As the Democratic senator for South Carolina, James Henry Hammond, threatened, 'You dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king'. British mill owners, it was believed, could not risk their machines falling quiet.

British attitudes towards the North and South

Attitudes towards the North and South helped to inform British policy towards America. These views often differed according to social class and from region to region. Historians continue to debate the nature and importance of these divisions. It is usually argued that the British ruling and middle classes took the view that Southern society owed much to British aristocratic and gentlemanly manners and outlook, while the North represented industrial competition with Britain, and remained a bastion of Yankee independence, forever revelling in its overthrow of British rule in the 1770s and 1780s. Those giving their support to the Southern states feared Northern industrial competition and saw widespread democracy as a source of political breakdown and civil strife.

In contrast, radicals and the lower-middle and working classes firmly supported the democratic, anti-slavery, industrialised North. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 helped to galvanise support of the Union among many in Britain, confirming the war as a campaign for democracy and against slavery. The North and the black American population was also conceived in a more sympathetic light, one that drew its energy from the enormous popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin: or, Life Amongst the Lowly (1852). Many thousands of copies were sold in the Britain, and the anti-slavery novel also inspired a range of songs, poems, plays and paintings.

However, these neat distinctions have increasingly been criticised by historians. The notion of northern, working-class support for the North may have been promulgated by Richard Cobden and John Bright as part of their political campaigns, rather than having being something that was widely shared. Regional studies have shown that many areas in the north of England, such as Lancashire, and particularly Liverpool, were strongly pro-Confederate. Detailed studies of the press have also revealed the importance of the issue of slavery to the British debate, notably the damage done to the Confederate case and widespread scepticism of Union anti-slavery feeling.

Britain and the World

The Civil War took place within a global context, with important strategic implications for the British Empire. Britain had recently fought in the Crimean War (1853–1856) and was reeling from the Indian Rebellion of 1857–1858. One of Britain’s main strategic aims was to avoid becoming drawn into the American conflict, while being aware of the need to defend its Canadian provinces and its strategic interest in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as its wider role in the world.

Key Events

As well as economic ties, public opinion and strategic realities, a series of events became key flashpoints in the relationship between America and Britain.

The Trent Affair

In 1861, the USS San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Charles Wilkes, intercepted the British mail packet, RMS Trent, and captured two Confederate diplomats, James Mason and John Slidell. The Trent Affair was a diplomatic incident of the first order.

CSS Alabama

The CSS Alabama, a Birkenhead-built Confederate Navy cruiser, attacked Union naval and commercial shipping during the conflict. After the war, the United States sought compensation from Britain for damages caused by their assistance to the Confederacy, eventually settling in 1872 in what were known as the 'Alabama Claims'. The ship sank off Cherbourg in 1864 by the USS Kearsarge.

The Emancipation Proclamation

On 22 September 1862, following Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln drafted an executive order – referred to as the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation – which stated that if the Confederate States did not return to the Union by 1 January 1863, slaves residing in the rebelling areas of the country would be free. This applied to the majority of slaves in America. As no Confederate state returned, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863. The Union cause became tied to abolition as a result. The move largely ruled out the possibility of Britain recognising Southern independence, given its commitment to slavery.

Many beyond American saw the Emancipation Proclamation as part of a wider fight for democracy against the institution of slavery. In response to the September 1862 order, and on the eve of the Proclamation’s issue, a meeting was held in Manchester’s Freed Trade Hall during which mill workers and those connected to the cotton trade discussed the conflict across the Atlantic. Stocks of surplus cotton were declining and imports were impacted by Union-imposed embargos, yet despite increasing economic hardship, a motion was carried at the meeting which supported the continuing blockade and Lincoln’s proclamation to abolish slavery. The President replied directly to the mill workers in January 1863, thanking them for their support in the face the personal hardship that befell them whilst the cotton trade was restricted. Praising their 'sublime Christian heroism', Lincoln reassured the workers and the wider British public that 'whatever misfortune may befall your country or my own, the peace and friendship which now exists between the two nations will be, as it shall be my desire to make them, perpetual'.